August Derleth
American | ethnicity = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = Fantasy, horror, science fiction | movement = Cosmicism | notableworks = | spouse= | influences = | signature = }} August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 - July 4, 1971) was an American poet, prose writer, publisher, and anthologist. Life Overview Derleth is best remembered as the original publisher of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the so-called Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK). Derleth was also a leading American regional writer of his day, prolific in several other genres besides horor, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction and biography. Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing. Youth and education The son of William Julius Derleth and Rose Louise (Volk), Derleth grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin."August Derleth Services Wednesday in Sauk City," Capital Times, July 6, 1971, p. 24, col. 2. He was educated in local parochial and public high school. Derleth wrote his earliest fiction at age 13. He was interested most in reading, and he made 3 trips to the library a week. He would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 later on in life). Some of his biggest influences were Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, Walt Whitman, H.L. Mencken's American Mercury, Samuel Johnson's History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ''Alexandre Dumas, Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Scott, and Henry David Thoreau's ''Walden. Early career 3 years and 40 rejected stories later (according to anthologist Jim Stephens), Derleth sold his 1st story, "Bat's Belfry", to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth wrote throughout his 4 years at the University of Wisconsin, where he received a B.A. in 1930. During this time he also served briefly as associate editor of Minneapolis-based Fawcett Publications' Mystic Magazine. Returning to Sauk City in the summer of 1931, Derleth worked in a local canning factory and collaborated with childhood friend Mark Schorer (later Chairman of the University of California, Berkeley English Department). They rented a cabin, writing Gothic and other horror stories and selling them to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth won a place on the O'Brien Roll of Honor for Five Alone, published in Place of Hawks, but was first found in Pagany magazine. In the mid-1930s, Derleth organized a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local school board, served as a parole officer, organized a local men's club and a parent-teacher association.Derleth, August. "An Autobiography." He also lectured in American regional literature at the University of Wisconsin and was a contributing editor of Outdoors Magazine. Arkham House Derleth was a correspondent and friend of H.P. Lovecraft – when Lovecraft wrote about "le Comte d'Erlette" in his fiction, it was in homage to Derleth. When Lovecraft died in 1937, Derleth and Donald Wandrei assembled a collection of Lovecraft's stories and tried to get them published. Existing publishers showed little interest, so Derleth and Wandrei founded Arkham House in 1939 for that purpose. The name of the company derived from Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, which features in many of his stories. In 1939 Arkham House published The Outsider and Others, a huge collection that contained most of Lovecraft's known short stories. Derleth and Wandrei soon expanded Arkham House and began a regular publishing schedule after its 2nd book, Someone in the Dark, a collection of some of Derleth's own horror stories, was published in 1941. A significant number of Lovecraft fans and critics, such as Dirk W. Mosig,Mosig, "H. P. Lovecraft: Myth Maker" (1976), collected in Mosig at Last, Necronomicon Press 1997. S.T. Joshi,Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Necronomicon Press 1996, pp. 403-4. and Richard L. Tierney"The Derleth Mythos" in Meade & Penny Frierson (eds), HPL (1972) were dissatisfied with Derleth's invention of the term Cthulhu Mythos (Lovecraft himself used Yog-Sothothery) and his belief that Lovecraft's fiction had an overall pattern reflecting Derleth's own Christian world view. Nevertheless, Derleth's founding of Arkham House and his successful effort to rescue Lovecraft from literary obscurity are widely acknowledged by practitioners in the horror field as seminal events in the field. For instance, Ramsey Campbell has acknowledged Derleth's encouragement and guidance during the early part of his own writing career,For example, in The Count of Thirty (Necronomicon Press 1993), p.11. and Kirby McCauley has cited Derleth and Arkham House as an inspiration for his own anthology, Dark Forces.Kirby McCauley, Introduction, Dark Forces (1980). Arkham House and Derleth published Dark Carnival, the first book by Ray Bradbury, as well. Brian Lumley cites the importance of Derleth to his own Lovecraftian work, and contends in a 2009 introduction to Derleth's work that he was "...one of the first, finest, and most discerning editors and publishers of macabre fiction." Later career In 1941, he became literary editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, a post he held until his resignation in 1960. His hobbies included fencing, swimming, chess, philately, and comic-strips. (Derleth reportedly deployed the funding from his Guggenheim Fellowship to bind his comic book collection, most recently valued in the millions of dollars, rather than to travel abroad as the award intended.). Derleth's true avocation, however, was hiking the terrain of his native Wisconsin lands, and observing and recording nature with an expert eye. Derleth once wrote of his writing methods, "I write very swiftly, from 750,000 to a million words yearly, very little of it pulp material." He was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters. They divorced 6 years later; Derleth retained custody of the couple's 2o children, April Rose and Walden William. April earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994, and remained in that capacity until her death on March 21, 2011. http://www.arkhamhouse.com/ In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill, dedicated to poems of man and nature. Derleth died of a massive and sudden heart attack on July 4, 1971, and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City. Writing Derleth wrote more than 150 short stories and more than 100 books during his lifetime. The Sac Prairie Saga Derleth wrote an expansive series of novels, short stories, journals, poems, and other works about Sac Prairie (whose prototype is Sauk City). Derleth intended this series to comprise up to 50 novels telling the projected life-story of the region from the 19th century onwards, with analogies to Balzac's Human Comedy and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. This, and other early work by Derleth, made him a well known figure among the regional literary figures of his time: early Pulitzer Prize winners Hamlin Garland and Zona Gale, as well as Sinclair Lewis, the last both an admirer and critic of Derleth. Edward Wagenknecht wrote in Cavalcade of the American Novel: "What Mr. Derleth has that is lacking ... in modern novelists generally, is a country. He belongs. He writes of a land and a people that are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In his fictional world, there is a unity much deeper and more fundamental than anything that can be conferred by an ideology. It is clear, too, that he did not get the best, and most fictionally useful, part of his background material from research in the library; like Scott, in his Border novels, he gives, rather, the impression of having drunk it in with his mother's milk." Jim Stephens, editor of An August Derleth Reader, (1992), argues: "what Derleth accomplished....was to gather a Wisconsin mythos which gave respect to the ancient fundament of our contemporary life." The author inaugurated the Sac Pairie Saga with four novellas comprising Place of Hawks, published by Loring & Mussey in 1935. At publication, The Detroit News wrote: "Certainly with this book Mr. Derleth may be added to the American writers of distinction." Derleth's 1st novel, Still is the Summer Night, was published 2 years later by Charles Scribners, edited Maxwell Perkins, and was the 2nd book in his Sac Pairie Saga. Village Year, the 1st in a series of journals – meditations on nature, Midwestern village American life, and more – was published in 1941 to praise from The New York Times Book Review: "A book of instant sensitive responsiveness...recreates its scene with acuteness and beauty, and makes an unusual contribution to the Americana of the present day." The New York Herald Tribune observed that "Derleth...deepens the value of his village setting by presenting in full the enduring natural background; with the people projected against this, the writing comes to have the quality of an old Flemish picture, humanity lively and amusing and loveable in the foreground and nature magnificent beyond." James Grey, writing in the St. Louis Dispatch concluded, "Derleth has achieved a kind of prose equivalent of the Spoon River Anthology." In the same year, Evening in Spring was published by Charles Scribners & Sons. This work Derleth considered among his finest. What The Milwaukee Journal called "this beautiful little love story," is an autobiographical novel of 1st love beset by small town religious bigotry. The work received critical praise: The New Yorker considered it a story told "with tenderness and charm," while the Chicago Tribune concluded: "It's as though he turned back the pages of an old diary and told, with rekindled emotion, of the pangs of pain and the sharp, clear sweetness of a boy's first love." Helen Constance White, wrote in The Capital Times that it was "...the best articulated, the most fully disciplined of his stories." These were followed in 1943 with Shadow of Night, a Scribners' novel of which The Chicago Sun wrote: "Structurally it has the perfection of a carved jewel...A psychological novel of the first order, and an adventure tale that is unique and inspiriting." In November 1945, however, Derleth's work was attacked by his 1-time admirer and mentor, Sinclair Lewis. Writing in Esquire, Lewis said, "It is a proof of Mr. Derleth's merit that he makes one want to make the journey and see his particular Avalon: The Wisconsin River shining among its islands, and the castles of Baron Pierneau and Hercules Dousman. He is a champion and a justification of regionalism. Yet he is also a burly, bounding, bustling, self-confident, opinionated, and highly sweatered young man with faults so grievous that a melancholoy perusal of them may be of more value to apprentices than a study of his serious virtues. If he could ever be persuaded that he isn't half as good as he thinks he is, if he would learn the art of sitting still and using a blue pencil, he might become twice as good as he thinks he is – which would about rank him with Homer." Derleth good humoredly reprinted the criticism along with a photograph of himself sans sweater, on the back cover of his 1948 country journal: Village Daybook. A lighter side to the Sac Prairie Saga is a series of quasi-autobiographical short stories known as the "Gus Elker Stories," amusing tales of country life that Peter Ruber, Derleth's last editor, said were "...models of construction and...fused with some of the most memorable characters in American literature." Most were written between 1934 and the late 1940s, though the last, "Tail of the Dog", was published in 1959 and won the Scholastic Magazine short story award for the year. The series was collected and republished in Country Matters in 1996. "Walden West," published in 1961, is considered by many Derleth's finest work. This prose meditation is built out of the same fundamental material as the series of Sac Prairie journals, but is organized around three themes: "the persistence of memory...the sounds and odors of the country...and Thoreau's observation that the 'mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'" A blend of nature writing, philosophic musings, and careful observation of the people and place of "Sac Prairie." Of this work, George Vukelich, author of "North Country Notebook," writes: "Derleth's Walden West is...the equal of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology." This was followed eight years later by "Return to Walden West," a work of similar quality, but with a more noticeable environmentalist edge to the writing, notes critic Norbert Blei. A close literary relative of the Sac Prairie Saga was Derleth's Wisconsin Saga, which comprises several historical novels. Detective and mystery fiction Detective fiction represented another substantial body of Derleth's work. Most notable among this work was a series of 70 stories in affectionate pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, whose creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he admired greatly. These included a published novel as well (Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey). The series features a (Sherlock Holmes-styled) British detective named Solar Pons, of Praed Street in London. The series was greatly admired by such notable writers and critics of mystery and detective fiction as Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay), Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett and Howard Haycraft. In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen wrote of Derleth's The Norcross Riddle, an early Pons story: "How many budding authors, not even old enough to vote, could have captured the spirit and atmosphere with as much fidelity?" Queen adds, "...and his choice of the euphonic Solar Pons is an appealing addition to the fascinating lore of Sherlockian nomenclature." Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to the 1964 edition of The Casebook of Solar Pons, wrote that the series is "...as sparkling a galaxy of Sherlockian pastiches as we have had since the canonical entertainments came to an end." Despite close similarities to Doyle's creation, Pons lived in the post-World War I era, in the decade of the 1920s. Though Derleth never wrote a Pons novel to equal The Hound of the Baskervilles, editor Peter Ruber wrote: "...Derleth produced more than a few Solar Pons stories almost as good as Sir Arthur's, and many that had better plot construction." Although these stories were a form of diversion for Derleth, Ruber, who edited The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition (2000), argued: "Because the stories were generally of such high quality, they ought to be assessed on their own merits as a unique contribution in the annals of mystery ficton, rather than suffering comparison as one of the endless imitators of Sherlock Holmes." Some of the stories were self-published, through a new imprint called "Mycroft & Moran", an appellation of humorous significance to Holmesian scholars. For approximately a decade, an active supporting group was the Praed Street Irregulars, patterned after the Baker Street Irregulars. In 1946, Conan Doyle's 2 sons made some attempts to force Derleth to cease publishing the Solar Pons series, but the efforts were unsuccessful and eventually withdrawn.[http://www.batteredbox.com/AugustDerlethMycroft/FinalAdventureSolarPond.htm THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF SOLAR PONS, by August Derleth, Introduction by Peter Ruber] Derleth's mystery and detective fiction also included a series of works set in Sac Prairie and featuring Judge Peck as the central character. Youth and children's fiction Derleth wrote many and varied children's works, including biographies meant to introduce younger readers to explorer Fr. Marquette, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Arguably most important among his works for younger readers, however, is the Steve and Sim Mystery Series. The ten-volume series is set in Sac Prairie of the 1920s and can thus be considered in its own right a part of the Sac Prairie Saga, as well as an extension of Derleth's body of mystery fiction. Robert Hood, writing in the New York Times said: "Steve and Sim, the major characters, are twentieth-century cousins of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer; Derleth's minor characters, little gems of comic drawing." The 1st novel in the series, The Moon Tenders, does, in fact, involve a rafting adventure down the Wisconsin River, which led regional writer Jesse Stuart to suggest the novel was one that "older people might read to recapture the spirit and dream of youth." The connection to the Sac Prairie Saga was noted by the Chicago Tribune: "Once again a small midwest community in 1920s is depicted with perception, skill, and dry humor." Horror fiction Important as was Derleth's work to rescue H.P. Lovecraft from literary obscurity at the time of Lovecraft's death, Derleth also built a body of horror and spectral fiction of his own; still frequently anthologized. The best of this work, recently reprinted in 4 volumes of short stories (most of which were originally published in Weird Tales) illustrates Derleth's original abilities in the genre. While Derleth considered his work in this genre less important than his most serious literary efforts, the compilers of these 4 anthologies, including Ramsey Campbell, note that the stories still resonate after more than 50 years. Derleth invented the term "Cthulhu Mythos" to describe the fictional universe described in the series of stories shared by Lovecraft and other writers in his circle. Derleth's own writing emphasized the struggle between good and evil, in line with his own Christian world view and in contrast with Lovecraft's depiction of an amoral universe. Derleth also treated Lovecraft's Old Ones as representatives of elemental forces, creating new fictional entities to flesh out this framework. Following Lovecraft's death, Derleth wrote a number of stories based on fragments and notes left by Lovecraft. These were published in Weird Tales and later in book form, under the byline "H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth", with Derleth calling himself a "posthumous collaborator." This practice has raised objections in some quarters that Derleth simply used Lovecraft's name to market what was essentially his own fiction; S.T. Joshi refers to the "posthumous collaborations" as marking the beginning of "perhaps the most disreputable phase of Derleth's activities".Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, Necronomicon Press 1996, p.638. Other works Although Derleth was not a trained historian, he wrote many historical novels, as part of both the Sac Prairie Saga and the Wisconsin Saga. He also wrote history; arguably most notable among these was The Wisconsin: River of a Thousand Isles, published in 1942. The work was one in a series entitled "The Rivers of America", conceived by writer Constance Lindsay Skinner in the Great Depression as a series that would connect Americans to their heritage through the history of the great rivers of the nation. Skinner wanted the series to be written by artists, not academicians. Derleth, while not a professional historian, was, according to former Wisconsin state historian William F. Thompson, "...a very competent regional historian who based his historical writing upon research in the primary documents and who regularly sought the help of professionals... ." In the foreword to the 1985 reissue of the work by The University of Wisconsin Press, Thompson concluded: "No other writer, of whatever background or training, knew and understood his particular 'corner of the earth' better than August Derleth." Derleth wrote several volumes of poems, as well as biographies of, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and author and playwright Zona Gale. He also wrote introductions to several collections of classic early 20th century comics, such as Buster Brown, Little Nemo in Slumberland, and Katzenjammer Kids, as well as a book of children's poetry entitled A Boy's Way. Derleth also wrote under the nom de plumes "Stephen Grendon," "Kenyon Holmes," and "Tally Mason." Derleth's papers and comic book collection (valued at a considerable sum upon his death) was donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.Derleth, August, 1909 - 1971 Recognition As a result of his early work on the Sac Prairie Saga, Derleth was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his sponsors were Helen C. White, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis and poet Edgar Lee Masters of Spoon River Anthology fame. In 2009, the Library of America selected Derleth’s story "The Panelled Room" for inclusion in its 2-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales. Awards *O'Brien Roll of Honour for short story, 1933 *Guggenheim Fellowship, 1938 Publications Poetry *''Hawk on the Wind''. Philadelphia: Ritten House, 1938. *''Elegy on a Flake of Snow''. Muscatine, IA: Prairie Press, 1938. *''Man Track Here''. Philadelphia: Ritten House, 1939. *''Here on a Darkling Plain''. Philadelphia: Ritten House, 1940. *''Wind in the Elms''. Philadelphia: Ritten House, 1941. *''Rind of Earth''. Prairie City, IL: Decker Press, 1942. *''And You, Thoreau!. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1944. *''Selected Poems. Prairie City, IL: Decker Press, 1944. *''The Edge of Night''. Prairie City, IL: Decker Press, 1945. *''The Habitant of Dusk: A garland for Cassandra''. Boston: Walden Press, 1946. *''Dark of the Moon: Poems of fantasy and the macabre''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1947. *''Country Poems''. Iowa City, IA: Prairie Press, 1952. *''Rendezvous in a Landscape''. New York: Fine Editions Press, 1952. *''Psyche''. Iowa City, IA: Prairie Press, 1953. *''Elegy: On the umbral moon''. Forest Park, IL: Acorn Press, 1957. *''West of Morning''. Francestown, NH: Golden Quill Press, 1960. *''This Wound''. Iowa City, IA; Prairie Press, 1962. *''Country Places''. Iowa City, IA; Prairie Press, 1965. *''The Only Place We Live''. Iowa City, IA; Prairie Press, 1966. *''By Owl Light''. Iowa City, IA; Prairie Press, 1967. *''Collected Poems, 1937-1967''. New York: Candlelight Press, 1967; Shelburne, ON: Hawk & Whippoorwill, 1995. *''Caitlin''. Iowa City, IA; Prairie Press, 1969. *''The Landscape of the Heart''. Iowa City, IA; Prairie Press, 1970. *''Love Letters to Caitlin''. New York: Candlelight Press, 1971 (not released). *''The Only Place We Live'' (by August Derleth, Jesse Stuart, & Robert E. Gard; edited by Mark E. Lefebvre). Madison, WI: Wisconsin House, 1976. Novels *''The Lurker at the Threshhold'' (with H.P. Lovecraft). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1945; London: Museum Press, 1945; London: Gollacz, 1968. *''Death by Design''. New York; Arcadia House, 1953. *''The Pinkertons Ride Again'' (1960) Sac Prairie Saga *''Still is the Summer Night''. New York: Scribner, 1937. *''Wind Over Wisconsin''. New York: Scibner, 1938; New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1956. *''Any Day Now'' (novella). Chicago: Normandy House, 1938. *''Restless is the River''. New York: Scribner, 1939. *''Evening in Spring''. New York: Scribner, 1941. *''Sweet Genevieve''. New York: Scribner, 1942. *''Shadow of Night''. New York: Scribner, 1943. *''The Shield of the Valiant''. New York: Scribner, 1945. *''The House of Moonlight'' (novella). Iowa City, IA: Prairie Press, 1953. Wisconsin Saga *''Bright Journey''. New York: Scribner, 1940. *''The House on the Mound''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1958; Shelburne, ON: Hawk & Whippoorwill, 1996. *''The Hills Stand Watch''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1960. *''The Shadow in the Glass''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1963. *''The Wind Leans West''. New York: Candlelight Press, 1969. Judge Peck series *''The Man on All Fours''. New York: Loring & Mussey, 1934. *''Murder Stalks the Wakely Family''. New York: Loring & Mussey, 1934 **published in UK as Death Stalks the Wakely Family. London: Newnes, 1937. * *''Sign of Fear''. New York: Loring & Mussey, 1935. *''Three Who Died''. New York: Loring & Mussey, 1935. *''Sentence Deferred''. New York: Scribner, 1939. *''The Narracong Riddle''. New York: Scribner, 1940; London: Heinemann, 1940. *''The Seven Who Waited''. New York: Scribner, 1943; London: Muller, 1945. *''Mischief in the Lane''. New York: Scribner, 1944; London: Muller, 1945. *''No Future for Luana''. New York: Scribner, 1945. *''Fell Purpose''. New York: Arcadia House, 1953. Short fiction *''Someone in the Dark''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1941; New York: Jove / HBJ, 1978. *''Something Near''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1945. *''Not Long for This World''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1948. *''The Survivor, and others'' (with H.P. Lovecraft). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1957; New York: Ballantine, 1962. *''The Mask of Cthulu''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1958; London: Consul Books, 1961; New York: Beagle Books, 1971; Jersey: Neville, Spearman, 1974; New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996. *''Lonesome Places''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1962. *''The Trail of Cthulu''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1962; New York: Beagle Books, 1971; Jersey: Spearman, 1974; London: Panther, 1966; New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996. *''Mr. George, and other odd persons'' (as "Stephen Grendon"). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1963; New York: Belmont, 1964. ** also published as When Graveyards Yawn. London: Tandem Books, 1965. *''Colonel Markesan, and less pleasant people'' (with Mark Schorer). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1966. *''The Shadow out of Time'' (with H.P. Lovecraft). London: Gollancz, 1968, 1973, 1977. *''Consider Your Verdict: Ten coroner's cases for you to solve'' (as "Tally Mason"). New York: Stackpole, 1973. *''The Watchers out of Time, and others'' (with H.P. Lovecraft). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1974 **also published as The Watchers out of Time. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996. *''Harrigan's File'' (science fiction). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1975. *''Dwellers in Darkness''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1976. Sac Prairie Saga *''Place of Hawks''. New York: Long & Mussey, 1935. *''Country Growth''. New York: Scribner, 1940. *''Wisconsin Earth: A Sac Prairie Sampler'' (1948) *''Sac Prairie People''. Sauk City, WI: (1948) *''Wisconsin in Their Bones. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1961.'' *''Country Matters'' (edited by Peter Ruber). Shelburne, ON: Hawk & Whippoorwill, 1996. *''Return to Sac Prairie''(edited by Peter Ruber). Shelburne, ON: Hawk & Whippoorwill, 1996. *''The Lost Sac Prairie Novels'' (2000), including The Odyssey of Janna Meade (first published in the Star Weekly Magazine December 3, 1949); The Wind in the Cedars (also as Happiness Shall Not Escape) (first published in Redbook Magazine, January 1946), Lamplight for the Dark (first published in Redbook Magaizine January 1941); Shane's Girls (also as Happiness is a Gift) (first published in Redbook Magazine 1948) Solar Pons *''In Re: Sherlock Holmes: The adventures of Solar Pons]]. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1945 **also published as ''Regarding Sherlock Holmes: The adventures of Solar Pons;;. New York: Pinnacle Books, 1974 **published in UK as The Adventures of Solar Pons. London: Robson Books, 1975; London: Futura, 1976. *''The Memoirs of Solar Pons''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1951; New York: Unicorn Book Club, 1951; New York: Pinnacle Books, 1951. *''Three Problems for Solar Pons''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1952. *''The Return of Solar Pons''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1958; New York: Pinnacle Books, 1975. *''Reminiscences of Solar Pons'', Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1961. *''The Adventure of the Orient Express''. New York: Candlelight, 1965; **published in pig-latin as Hetay Adventureyay ofyay hetay Orientyay Expressyay. Shelburne, ON: Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 1996. *''The Casebook of Solar Pons''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1965; New York: Pinnacle Books, 1965. *''Praed Street Papers''. New York: Candlelight, 1965. *''The Adventure of the Unique Dickensians''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1968. *''Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1968; New York: Pinnacle Books, 1976. *''A Praed Street Dossier''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1968. *''The Chronicles of Solar Pons''. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1973; New York: Pinnacle Books, 1974; London: Robson Books, 1975. *''The Exploits of Solar Pons'' (combines The Adventures of Solar Pons & The Chronicles of Solar Pons). London: Robson Books, 1975 *''The Solar Pons Omnibus Edition'' (edited by Basil Copper). Sauk City, WI: Arkham, House, 1982. *''The 'Unpublished' Solar Pons''. Toronto: Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, 1994. *''The Solar Pons Portfolio'' (edited by George A. Vanderburgh). Shelburne, ON: Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 1996. *''The Final Adventures of Solar Pons'' (1998) Non-fiction *''Heritage of Sauk City''. Sauk City, WI: Pioneer Press, 1931. *''Wisconsin Literature. Sauk City, IA: 1941; revised, 1942. *''The Wisconsin: River of a thousand isles. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942; Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. *''Writing Fiction''. Boston: The Writer, 1946; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. *''Sweet Land of Michigan''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1962. *''A Wisconsin Harvest''. Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1966. *''Wisconsin''. New York: Coward-McCann (States of the Nation Series), 1967. *''Return to Derleth: Selected essays'' (edited by James P. Roberts). (2 volumes), White Hawk Press, 1993. History *''The Milwaukee Road: Its first hundred years''. New York: Creative Age, 1948. *''Sauk County: A centennial history''. Baraboo, WI: Sauk County Centennial Committee, 1948. *''Vincennes: Portal to the west''. New York: Prentice Hall, 1968. *''Wisconsin Murders''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1968. *''The Wisconsin Valley: A student guide to localized history''. New York: Teachers College Press, 1969. Biography *''Still Small Voice: Biography of Zona Gale''. New York: D. Appleton, 1940. *''H.P.L.: A Memoir''. New York: Ben Adamson, 1945. *''Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft'' (1959) *''Concord Rebel: A life of Henry D. Thoreau''. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1962; New York: Avon, 1962. *''Three Literary Men: A memoir of Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters''. New York: Candlelight Press, 1963. *''The Forest Orphans''. New York: Ernest, 1964 **revised as Mr. Conservation. Park Falls, WI: MacGregor Litho, 1971. *''Walden Pond: Homage to Thoreau. Iowa City, IA: Prairie Press, 1968.'' *''Emerson, Our Contemporary''. New York: Crowell-Collier, 1970. Juvenile *''Bill's Diary'' (poetry). Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1945. *''Oliver, the Wayward Owl'' (poetry). Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1945. *''A Boy's Way'' (poetry). Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1947. *''It's a Boy's World: Poems''. Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1948. *''The Country of the Hawk''. New York: Aladdin Books, 1952. *''The Captive Island''. New York: Aladdin Books; New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1960. *''Empire of Fur: Trading in the Lake Superior Region''. New York: Aladdin Books, 1953. *''Land of Gray Gold : Lead Mining in Wisconsin''. New York: Aladdin Books, 1954. *''Land of the Sky-Blue Waters''. New York: Aladdin Books, 1955. *''St. Ignatius and the Company of Jesus. New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1955; London: Burns & Oates, 1956.'' *''Father Marquette and the Great Rivers''. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, 1955; London: Burns & Oates, 1955 *condensed, New York: Guild Press, 1962. *''Columbus and the New World''. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Cudahy, 1957; London: Burns & Oates, 1957. *''Wilbur, the Trusting Whippoorwill'' (poetry). Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1959. *''The Beast in Holger’s Woods'' (myster). New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968. Mill Creek Irregulars *''The Moon Tenders''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1958. *''The Mill Creek Irregulars''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1959. *''The Ghost of Black Hawk Island''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1961. *''The Tent Show Summer''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1963. *''The Irregulars Strike Again''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1964. *''The House by the River''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1965. *''The Watcher on the Heights''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1966. *''The Prince Goes West''. New York: Meredith Press, 1968. *''The Three Straw Men''. New York: Candlelight, 1970. Collected editions *''Wisconsin Earth: A Sac Prairie sampler'' (contains Place of Hawks, Shadow of Night, & Village Year). Chicago: Stanton & Lee, 1948. Edited *''Poetry out of Wisconsin'' (edited with R.E. Larsson). New York: Harrison, 1937. *H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider, and others (edited with Donald Wandrei). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1939. *H.P. Lovecraft, Best Supernatural Stories. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1945. * H.P. Lovecraft, Marginalia (collected by Derleth & Donald Wandrei). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1945. *''Who Knocks? Twenty masterpieces of the spectral for the connoisseur''. New York: Rinehart, 1946. *''The Night Side: Masterpieces of the strange and terrible''. New York: Rinehart, 1947. *''The Sleeping and the Dead'' (stories). Chicago: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1947; London: Four Square Books, 1964. *''Strange Ports of Call'' (sf stories). New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1948; New York: Berkley, 1958. *H.P. Lovecraft, Something About Cats, and other pieces. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1949. *''The Other Side of the Moon'' (sf stories). New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1949; London: Grayson, 1956; New York: Berkley, 1959; London: Panther, 1963; London: Mayflower, 1966. *''Beyond Time and Space'' (sf stories). New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1950; New York: Berkley, 1950. *''Far Boundaries: 20 science-fiction stories''. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1951. *H.P. Lovecraft, The Haunter of the Dark, and other tales of terror. London: Gollancz, 1951. *''The Outer Reaches: Favorite science fiction tales chosen by their authors''. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1951; New York: Berkley, 1958 **also published as The Outer Reaches & The Time of Infinity. (2 volumes), London: Consul, 1963. *''Night's Yawning Peal''. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy / Arkham House, 1952. *''Beachheads in Space''. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1952; London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1954; New York: Berkley, 1958 **also published as Beachheads in Space & From Other Worlds. (2 volumes), London: Four Square, 1964. *''Portals of Tomorrow: The best of science fiction and other fantasy''. New York: Rinehard, 1953; London: Cassell, 1956. *''Worlds of Tomorrow: Science fiction with a difference''. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1953; London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1954; New York: Berkley, 1958 **also published as Worlds of Tomorrow & New Worlds for Old. (2 volumes), London: Four Square, 1963. *''Time to Come: Science fiction stories of tomorrow''. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Young, 1954; New York: Berkley, 1958; London: Consul, 1963; New York: Tower, 1965 *H.P. Lovecraft, The Shuttered Room, and other pieces. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1959. *H.P. Lovecraft, Some Notes on a Nonentity. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1959; London: Villiers, 1963. *''Hawk and Whippoorwill'' (quarterly poetry journal). Sauk City, WI: Hawk & Whippoorwill, 1960. *''Fire and Steel and Candlelight'' (poetry). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1961. *''Dark Mind, Dark Heart'' (stories). Sauk City, Wi: Arkham House, 1962. *H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror, and others: The best supernatural stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1963 **abridged version, New York: Lancer, 1963. *''When Evil Wakes: A new anthology of the macabre''. London: Souvenir Press, 1963; London: Corgi, 1965; London: Sphere Books, 1977. *''At the Mountains of Madness, and other novels''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1964; London: Gollancz, 1966. *''Over the Edge'' (stories). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1964; London: Gollancz, 1967. *H.P. Lovecraft, Dagon, and other macabre stories. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965. *H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters. (5 volumes), Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965-1976 **''Volume 1: 1911-1925'' (edited with Donald Wandrei). 1965. **''Volume 2: 1925-1929''. (edited with Donald Wandrei). 1968. **''Volume 3: 1929-1931'' (edited with Donald Wandrei). 1971. **''Volume 4: 1932-1934'' (edited With James Turner). 1976. **''Volume 5: 1934-1937'' (edited With James Turner). 1976. *''Travellers by Night'' (stories). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1967; London: Gollancz, 1968. *''Tales of the Cthulu Mythos''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1969; (2 volumes), London: Panther Books, 1975. *''New Poetry out of Wisconsin''. Sauk City, WI: Stanton & Lee, 1969. *H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror in the Museum, and other revisions. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1970 **published in UK as The Horror in the Museum & The Horror in the Burying Ground. (2 volumes), London: Panther Books, 1975. *''Dark Things'' (stories). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971. Journals (Sac Prairie Saga) *''Atmosphere of Houses'' (1939) *''Village Year: A Sac Prairie Journal'' (1941) *''Village Daybook: A Sac prairie journal''. Chicago: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1947. *''Countryman's Journal''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1963. *''Walden West''. New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce: 1961; Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. *''Wisconsin Country: A Sac Prairie Journal'' (1965) *''Return to Walden West''. New York: Candlelight Press, 1970. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy August Derleth Society.A Bibliography of the Works of August Derleth, August Derleth Society. Web, July 2, 2014. See also *List of U.S. poets References * * * * * * * * *Meudt, Edna. 'August Derleth: "A simple, honorable man",' Wisconsin Academy Review, 19:2 (Summer, 1972) 8-11. * * *Schorer, Mark. "An Appraisal of the Work of August Derleth," The Capital Times, July 9, 1971. * Notes External links ;Poems *Poems for Someone Loved in Poetry (3 poems) ;Books * * ; About *August Derleth at the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets *August Derleth: An autobiography at Arkham House *August (William) Derleth (1909-1971) at eNotes *Derleth, August in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction * "Man Track Here: Derleth's poetry" *"August Derleth: Wisconsin's historical perspective" at Arkham House *[http://www.batteredbox.com/AugustDerlethHawk/QuietGraveyard.htm Introduction to In a Quiet Graveyard] ;Etc. *The August Derleth Society *Online catalog of Derleth's collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society *Arkham House Publishers, founded by Derleth *Stanton & Lee Publishers, founded by Derleth Category:1909 births Category:1971 deaths Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Category:American short story writers Category:American mystery writers Category:American novelists Category:Cthulhu Mythos writers Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:American horror writers Category:People from Sauk County, Wisconsin Category:Writers from Wisconsin Category:Science fiction editors Category:Solar Pons Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets